To meander the halls of theMuseum of All Things , is to wander the integral largeness of human knowledge . The interactive museum from developer Maya Claire , which you may download for free on itch.io , gives physical form toWikipediaby translate any page on the internet ’s favorite monument of information into a digital exhibit players can explore at their leisure time . While the synergistic experience might not be a “ secret plan ” in the way most people think of the condition , theMuseum of All Thingsis a clever use of interactive media that puts into view just how much selective information we have on need .
When I first start theMuseum of all ThingsI am put into a antechamber . In front of me I see a assistance desk with a sign and map explaining how the space is organize . Wings shoot off from the main vestibule for categories like hoi polloi , history , cultivation , geography , and more . Like a veridical museum , the best way to exploreMoATis to piece a wing at random and start explore . I choose the culture wing and walk down a big livid corridor with smaller hall shooting off . The sign for flood myth grabs my attention so I go into it and am get together with a large showing complete with framed images and tumid posters of text explicate the different historic , cultural , and spiritual aspects of the full term .
All of this data is pluck directly from Wikipedia , with images also sourced from Wikimedia Commons . In dewy-eyed terms , that intend each showing the player move into interpret a Wikipedia page into a forcible space . Each exhibit room also has more signs marking other offshoot , each one a link you ’d find oneself in the actual Wikipedia varlet to a connected topic . For example , After tramp the flood lamp myth exhibit I took a detour down the Zeus hallway and fall through a rabbit hole from there .
That feeling of getting drop off in the entropy rabbit hole is a quintessential Wikipedia experience that most people are familiar with . The hyperlinking of pages attain it so simple-minded to click advert infinitum and find yourself somewhere altogether different then when you protrude , with a handful of disparate fact now charge somewhere in your mind . MoATtakes that information plunge and slows it down to a more meditative summons by lodging it in an extended setting that follows a dreamlike structure of never - ending corridors and exhibits . While you might be able to get from Danny DeVito to Henry VIII in a matter of seconds on Wikipedia with a few choice clicks , that same way of life may take arcminute as you marvel about the less easily parsed structure ofMoAT . I feel like I finally understand what the protagonist of Susanna Clarke’sPiranesiwas going through .
It pull players to take in each bit of information on display more intentionally , as opposed to the rush stream that that same information becomes when on Wikipedia itself . There are way to hasten the hunt process withinMoATif so desired . A search part in the foyer opens up a direct path to whatever display you are looking for , and when you desire to pick up a bit more about something an selection in the pause bill of fare will take you directly to the corresponding page on Wikipedia . The freshness of rendering all this data as a forcible distance , however , is what makesMoATso magical .
Museums are something of an survival trial . My own personal regulation of thumb is that I ca n’t expend more than three hours in a museum . One second past that and I usually feel overwhelmed with information to the point my eye start glazing over . It ’s why , despite living in New York City for so many years , I ’ve yet to see every elbow room in theMetropolitan Museum of Art . That ’s just one museum , and while it is one of the largest in the world it does have a finite amount of information lay in within its wall . By contrast , MoATis almost inconceivable to quantify .
By rendering the deposit of knowledge that is Wikipedia into a simulacrum of physical distance , it gives us a stark realness check-out procedure about just how much entropy we really have at our fingertips . put it in the form of a traditional museum also reminds us that Wikipedia is not something that just came into existence , but something that was created and actively curated by people . Information is a powerful cock , and as bad actors look for topolice projects like Wikipedia , MoATis a admonisher not to take it for concede .
